As authorities battle with a spiked up, severe Omicron outbreak that has driven up hospitalisation rates and pressured the strain testing system, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated on Monday that the country was facing a shortage of at-home antigen test kits. He also added that the shortages were “not unique” to the country.
The government had ordered people with asymptomatic close contacts to skip the government-funded testing facilities, earlier this month. The decision led to a massive shortage of home-testing kits as huge number of people purchased the at-home test kits to conduct their own tests.
“Antigen tests for quick detection are in short supply all throughout the world. This isn’t a problem that only Australia has to deal with,” Morrison said on Monday to radio station 2GB. “It’s a necessary evil when dealing with Omicron. Omicron has thrown everything into disarray,” he added.
On Monday, the country’s competition regulator expressed “serious worries” over accusations of price gouging and stockpiling of testing kits, calling the raised pricing “obviously ridiculous.”
Australia has reported roughly 1.3 million cases in the previous two weeks, overwhelming hospitals and testing facilities after successfully suppressing the virus earlier in the pandemic.
On Monday, daily infections in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia’s two most populous states, decreased, indicating that the Omicron wave had reached its peak in the country. However, net new hospital admissions are still at an all-time high, with more patients admitted than at any other point throughout the pandemic.
By late morning, 52,970 instances had been reported between New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, with more states expected to report later. Last Thursday, national daily numbers reached a new high of 150,000, but have been slowly declining since then.
The outbreak has also threatened to stymie Australia’s economic recovery, as a growing number of workers have become ill or have been instructed to isolate themselves, causing staff shortages and affecting company supply chains.
“There is little doubt that Omicron’s rapid expansion is affecting people’s behaviour and eroding confidence,” Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg wrote in an opinion column in The Australian newspaper, but he added that he he hoped that the outbreak would pass away soon.
Since the pandemic began, Australia has reported 1.6 million Covid-19 cases and 2,691 deaths.
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